Remember that one day when you could wake up without an alarm? When you would get your favorite bowl of cereal and sit between the hours of 8 and 12? This is a blog dedicated to the greatest time of our childhood: Saturday mornings. The television programs you watched, the memories attached to them, and maybe introducing you to something you didn't realize existed. Updated every weekend.

Created by author John Peterson, The
Littlesis a book series that has been published by Scholastic since 1967; continued by other
authors after his death in 2002. The series focuses on a tiny family of human-like
creatures called the Littles and their people, who secretly live inside the
walls of the house of the normal-sized Bigg family. Their diminutive size
aren’t the only things that set them apart from regular humans as the Littles
also possessed long tails.

The 1967 edition of The Littles.

The primary characters were William
T. Little and Wilma Little, the parents of Tom and Lucy, who lived with Uncle
Pete, Uncle Nick, Granny, Grandpa and Baby Betsy. Dinky was an older cousin to
the family and flew a glider that provided transport for any of their people in
the area, as well as allowed him to seek adventures. He lived with his mother,
Lilly, and eventually married a woman named Della. They took great pains to
keep the Biggs, and any humans, from learning about their existence.

Frank, Helen, Grandpa, Dinky, Lucy and Tom Little.

In 1982, the books were optioned for
an animated series by ABC. ABC contracted DiC Entertainment to
produce the series, making it one of the first three shows made by the studio
along with Inspector
Gadgetand Heathcliff (1984). While the overall series maintained
the core themes of the books, there were numerous changes made in the
adaptation. The Little parents were renamed Frank (Gregg Berger) and Helen
(Patricia Parris), Uncle Pete became Grandpa (Alvy Moore) and Dinky (Robert
David Hall) was the only extended relative to live with the family. Dinky’s
competency as a pilot—and in general—was greatly reduced to make him the
series’ comic relief, as well as a source of constant aggravation for Grandpa.
Dinky’s glider also became a small propeller plane. In addition to their tails,
the Littles were given pointy ears and buck teeth making them resemble a cross
between humans and mice.

Dr. Hunter.

Unique to the series were the
recurring villains of Dr. Hunter and his assistant, Peterson (both Ken Sansom).
Hunter knew of the Littles’ existence and sought to capture them and prove it.
Henry Bigg (Jimmy E. Keegan), the youngest member of the Bigg household, was
also aware of the Littles’ existence and befriended them; particularly Tom
(Donavan Freberg) and Lucy (Bettina Bush). Henry’s pet turtle, Slick (Frank
Welker), served as an emergency go-between whenever the Littles found
themselves in over their tiny heads.

The Littles meet some Amazonian Littles.

The
Littles debuted on September 10, 1983 becoming the first DiC production to
air on a network rather than syndication. DiC also used a unique logo seen at
the end of the show, by having Dinky throw a button to dot the “I”. Haim Saban and Shuki Levy handled the series’ music, and also
handled the show’s international distribution through their company Saban International.
Fulfilling FCC educational requirements,
many episodes dealt with moral lessons and social issues such as running away
from home and drug abuse. Each episode ended with a simple arts and crafts
project the viewers could do called “Little Ideas for Big People.” Jeffrey Scott wrote the entirety of the
first season.

For the second season, the series
received a new opening sequence. The first one featured Henry telling the
audience about his secret, with character introductions in a stylized setting
(an unfinished version of this intro was used in the 1983 ABC Saturday morning
preview special, amongst various clips from the episodes). The second intro
revealed that Henry learned about the Littles when Lucy and Tom fell into his
suitcase and was cornered by his cat. Both intros were recorded by Rachelle
Cano with altered lyrics. Troublemaking cousin Ashley (B.J. Ward) was added
to the cast, while Pat Fraley replaced Welker as the voice of Slick. The crafts
also became suggestions sent in by viewers. Scott wrote two of the season’s
eight episodes, joined by Heywood
Kling, Anthony Peckham, Olivier Jean-Marie, Jack Olesker, Kay Hanley an Aaron Springer.

When the series proved popular, ABC
commissioned a film spin-off also produced by DiC. Written by Kling and directed
by series director Bernard
Deyries, Here Come the Littles served
as a prequel to the series. Henry’s parents were lost on an archaeological dig
and he was made to live with his uncle, Augustus (Hal Smith). Henry and the
Littles had to save the Bigg house from being leveled by Augustus to make way
for a shopping center. It followed the season two explanation on how the
Littles met Henry; however Henry actually met Grandpa and Dinky before finding
Tom and Lucy in his suitcase. The movie was animated by Tokyo Movie Shinsha,
who also animated the series proper. The film was distributed by Atlantic
Releasing, who also released the other TV show-based films The Smurfs and the Magic
Fluteand He-Man and She-Ra: The Secret
of the Sword, on May 25, 1986. The film received mixed reviews and only
pulled in $6.6 million at the box office.

For the show’s final season, ABC decided
to change things up in order to reinvigorate its popularity and ratings. The
series was moved from the Bigg household to have Tom, Lucy, Dinky, Ashley and
Grandpa accompany Henry and his family on a trip around the world. Frank,
Helen, Hunter and Peterson were all written out, and David Wagner replaced Freberg
as the voice of Tom. The show was given a new intro detailing their journey,
again sung by Cano, as well as a new animation studio in Studio Gallop. The season was written
by Olesker, Sandy Fries, Matt Geller, Eleanor Burian-Mohr, Michael Reaves, Michael Maurer and Marc Scott Zicree, making it the first
without any participation from Scott.

Tom and Lucy doing some crafty inventing.

While the series wasn’t renewed for
another season, a second movie was produced again written by King and directed
by Deyries. Liberty and the Littles saw
the Littles ending up on Liberty Island in New York City where they discovered
another group of small people living in oppression. The movie aired on ABC
where it was later split up into three episodes and included in both the third
season of the show and in the ninth season of ABC Weekend Specials. When the
series was rerun in syndication, half of the third season and several other
episodes were not shown.

The Littles board game set up.

Tying into the show, Scholastic
released a series of easy
reader books utilizing images based on the character designs used on the
show, as well as a Punch
Out Toy Book where cardboard versions of the characters and props could be
removed and assembled and a sticker
book. Milton
Bradley produced a board
game that utilized a 3D design to simulate the Littles’ habitat.
Internationally, there were costumes, PVC
figurines, records and a card game.